Q&A: Sherry Towers on the contagion effect of mass shootings

October 5, 2015

When the media are calling Sherry Towers, it's often on a sad day.

Towers, a physicist at Arizona State University, has become a regular source for journalists since her paper on how the media coverage of mass shootings can inspire future mass shootings was published earlier this year. After last week's tragic shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, that left 10 people dead, Towers' phone was ringing once again. Arizona State University physicist Sherry Towers studies the statistics around mass shootings and how many are inspired by previous shootings. Download Full Image

The statistician, modeler and research professor spoke to about the recent tragedy and her study on the contagious nature of mass shootings.

Question: Does this recent incident seem to fall within the findings of your research?

Answer: Our research examined whether or not there was evidence that mass killings appear to inspire copycat killings. We found evidence that killings that receive national or international media attention do indeed inspire similar events a significant fraction of the time. In the case of this particular tragedy in Oregon, there have been reports that the killer apparently had a blog where he praised Vester Flanagan, the killer who shot two news reporters and a bystander on camera in August. If the reports are true, then indeed this recent killing may be an example of the contagion we have seen evident in so many other killings.

Q: So is conventional wisdom correct that some mass shootings are copycats?

A: Yes, we believe so. In fact, during the trial of the Aurora theater shooter, the father of one of the victims asked the media not to cover the trial, because he feared that the coverage would inspire copycat killings. Unfortunately, his prediction came true. A gunman opened fire in a Louisiana movie theater, and in a Tennessee movie theater a man attacked people with a hatchet. All within two weeks.

Q: How does just looking at numbers prove that?

A: The hallmark of contagion is seeing events unusually bunched together in time. The details of our analysis, where we fit a mathematical model of contagion to the data to quantify the level of contagion, are quite technical. But really, what it essentially amounts to is seeing if there are unusual groupings of events. In mass killings (four or more people killed), where the tragedies usually get national or international media attention, we saw significant evidence of this kind of unusual bunching. In mass shootings — with less than four people killed, but at least three people shot — we didn't see any evidence of unusual bunching. Interestingly, those events are so common in the U.S., happening once every few days, that they don't even make it past the local news. Because we saw evidence of contagion in high-profile events, and no evidence of contagion in events that mostly just got local news, we hypothesize that media attention may be the driver of the patterns we see. This kind of contagion has been suspected for a long time; our study is the first to quantify it.

Q: How does this compare to the probability of, say, a disease spreading, since we’re talking about a contagion phenomenon?

A: With a disease, you usually need close contact to spread it to someone else. In this case, the news media act as a "vector" that can transmit the infection across a very large area. The people who are susceptible to ideation to commit these terrible acts are quite rare in the population ... that's why it appears that it takes a lot of media coverage over a wide geographic area for this kind of contagion to take place.

Q: What is the news media’s role in this? Do they push up the numbers?

A: It appears that yes, national media coverage does end up increasing the frequency of these tragedies. However, the U.S. Constitution ensures freedom of the press ... we cannot legislate restrictions on the press to avoid this. It has to be a voluntary move. In fact, most press agencies will not report on suicides for exactly this reason ... suicides have been shown to be contagious. The sheriff in Oregon made the decision not to mention the killer's name. Perhaps his choice will be the beginning of a larger national conversation on how we can choose (or choose not) to cover these events.

Q: What is the next step in this research? What can you answer by taking it further?

A: It needs to be pointed out that we did this research without funding, because there has been a Congressional moratorium since the 1990s on funding for research into firearm violence. We had to do this study unpaid, in our spare time. This lack of funding is a huge barrier to better understanding of the dynamics that underlie these tragic events. No other developed country in the world expects its scientists to work for free, spending their evenings and weekends studying public-health problems as pressing as the out-of-control firearm violence in the U.S. Because of this moratorium on funding, there aren't even official statistics on these events. Given the amount of media attention that is paid to these tragedies, it always surprises me that the complete lack of federal funding for research into the problem is rarely mentioned. So yes, I and many other researchers would like to devote more of our time to studying this problem, but there are only so many hours available of our time that we can afford to work for free.

Logan Clark

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Be legendary.That was one of four strategies for success shared by Tish Norman, keynote speaker at the inaugural PowHER Women’s Conference held Sunday at Arizona State University.The event, organized by five ASU Panhellenic sorority members, aimed to inspire young women with the confidence and habits that would serve them well in college and beyond — while also acknowledging that although stri...

PowHER conference at ASU aims to inspire confidence in young women

More than 250 women learned about leadership, empowerment and confidence.

"Women can make an impact on many different scales," said Jasmine McAvan.

October 6, 2015

Be legendary.

That was one of four strategies for success shared by Tish Norman, keynote speaker at the inaugural PowHER Women’s Conference held Sunday at Arizona State University.

The event, organized by five ASU Panhellenic sorority members, aimed to inspire young women with the confidence and habits that would serve them well in college and beyond — while also acknowledging that although strides have been made in female empowerment, there is still work to do.

“A lot of women are really graduating not knowing that a lot of things have not changed,” said conference speaker Dale Kalika, senior lecturer at ASU's W. P. Carey School of Business.

Kalika, who spoke about the challenges Millennial women face in the workplace, said women need to be empowered to become change agents — both to change their opportunities and to change today’s organizational culture.

Speakers at the conference ranged from business experts, such as Kalika, to marketing managers to academic professionals. The event, though organized by sororities, was open to all.

Norman, executive director of leadership-development company Transforming Leaders Now, discussed how to prepare for success and how to maximize life.

“You are living in a very special time where you can be more, learn more, serve more, give more, have more, help more, read more, sing more, dance more, write more and be more,” Norman said.

Beyond being legendary — that is, making your mark, she challenged the audience to adopt three other strategies for achieving goals: Do the work; be strategic with your friends (surround yourself with people who want to achieve great things and improve themselves); and find a mentor.

“I think it’s great that there is something like this,” said conference-goer and ASU junior Alyssa Tufts, who is majoring in journalism and mass communication. “That way women can start, especially in college, they can start building leadership skills and getting into those roles at an organization, at an internship, at a job.

More than 250 women attended the conference at the Memorial Union ASU's Tempe campus and heard sessions on topics ranging from stress management to leadership to confidence.

Marlene Tromp, dean of ASU’s New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, told attendees that although women have come a long way there are many cultural attitudes that still need to change. By no fault of their own, people have no conscious awareness of their implicit biases, she said.

In her lecture, “Why You (Yes, You) Should Be President,” Tromp focused on social expectations that people have about women in leadership and why women should care. She laid out the challenges women face, dared the audience to think in new ways and taught them how to change gender expectations.

“There are all these double binds, there are all these challenges, and we know that one of the things that stops women from being in successful leadership positions, one of the biggest factors is what they think about themselves,” said Tromp, who is also vice provost of ASU's West campus and a professor of English and women's and gender studies.

She talked about what can be learned from research to overcome sexism, including persisting in the face of setbacks and embracing challenges.

“If you let your fear making those mistakes drive you, you won’t take those risks,” Tromp said. “You won’t accept those challenges.”

The days' overarching theme was learning to understand the stereotypes and expectations people have of women. Once recognized, the goal is to help women break those stereotypes and teach them how to succeed.

“Women can make an impact on many different scales," said Jasmine McAvan, business law and business management major and PowHER Conference committee chair. "If they can directly take a message from a particular speaker and better themselves through their personal lives or spread their willpower to improving their communities — our goal of the conference is accomplished.”